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Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Ind. Courts - Clerk of the Court Kevin Smith writes to the ILB
The ILB has just received a lengthy email from Kevin S. Smith, Clerk of the Courts, making the following points (the ILB has added some emphases):
(1) The Clerk writes re the ILB's Jan. 23rd entry: "The entry reported that, although the Clerk of the Court's office had changed long-established practice and was no longer making paper copies of opinions available, causing everyone to rely on the copies of the opinions posted online by the Clerk's Office, . . . "
The Clerk writes that: "This paragraph contains a misleading half-truth. We still serve free paper copies of opinions on all parties of record, amicus, and the affected trial court in each case. What we changed in November 2007 was our practice of providing free paper copies of opinions as a courtesy to certain organizations and members of the media, since those opinions are available on the judiciary's website."
Actually, what the ILB wrote on Jan. 23 was: "The Clerk of the Courts posted a notice the beginning of the year (which the ILB is now unable to locate - perhaps someone can help) announcing that paper copies of opinions would no longer be available to the press and that a date and time stamp would be added to the online opinions, which would become the official resource." The ILB should have quoted that language again on Feb. 11th.
(2) The Clerk writes: "The problem with opinions not making it onto the website had nothing to do with the Clerk's Office; rather, the problem was the result of problems occurring with the Indiana Office of Technology ("IOT"), the service provider for the opinions portion of the Judiciary's website. Indeed, you later noted as much in a subsequent entry (specifically, you wrote: "Although it now appears that the failure to post opinions online this week was due to a computer glitch"). Therefore, your statement on February 10th that the Clerk's Office "was not keeping up its end of the bargain" is simply false."
The ILB notes that it is the Clerk's Office that interfaces with the service provider. The ILB has pointed out in the past a number of ways in which that arrangement could be improved, to better serve the public. Presumably, the service provider is working for the Clerk's Office. See, eg, this entry from 12/12/07 titled "Suggestions to improve COA postings," this entry from 1/4/08 (which begins "The ILB has not heard back from its messages yesterday to the Indiana Clerk's Office re problems with the new format of the five opinions issued Jan. 3 and presumably all those to follow.") and this entry from 1/9/08, which includes "The problem appears to have been resolved yesterday. Today the Clerk's Office has begun posting opinions again and the ILB has had no problem opening the new files. ILB summaries will follow later today."
(3) The Clerk writes: "[T]he issue we experienced in late January concerning opinions temporarily not getting posted to the judiciary's website had nothing to do with the Clerk's Office. Therefore, your statement above, linking the temporary technical issues IOT experienced, on the one hand, with the backlog the Clerk's Office has been experiencing in processing some filings, on the other hand, was simply false."
The ILB, as noted in #2, does not agree.
(4) The Clerk makes the point that his office, to its credit, has been working on the backlog issue for some time, and disputes the ILB's concluding statement yesterday (2/10/08) that: "All this [the ILB's initial postings] occurred on January 23th. The ILB believes the beneficial result has been to focus attention on the important responsibilities of the Clerk's Office and the need for the money and manpower for it to do its job."
The Clerk concludes: "While you often do bring issues to our attention that lead to positive and beneficial changes, this simply was not one of those instances."
The ILB does not agree. The ILB's point was that many of us on the outside who individually deal with the office saw signs that there was a problem, but did not know its extent, were unwilling to publicly criticize an office we must deal with frequently, and did not know that the problems are in the process of being addressed. Now we do, and can watch as the problems (including hopefully those involving the Office's interaction with the IOT) are being resolved, and can support any future requests for additional funding and manpower.
You may access a PDF of Mr. Smith's email here.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 12, 2008 12:00 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts